


another dimension, a new galaxy

by faehunting



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Aliens, Alternate Universe - Space, M/M, Multi, Trans Character, this is basically a space au roadtrip
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-04-07
Updated: 2016-05-29
Packaged: 2018-05-31 21:26:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 9,974
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6488002
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/faehunting/pseuds/faehunting
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Eric R Bittle, aka Intergalactic Ambassador of Beyoncé Knowles, aka the unanimously voted and first official ship chef, aka the human who went where no human has gone before.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. exeunt, pursued by homophobes

**Author's Note:**

> so this is some kind of space road trip au, with a partial "do androids dreams of electric sheep" au subplot. alternately titled "space, please!"
> 
> when reading about hockey bros, what else does anyone want but to put them in space?
> 
> work title paraphrased from [intergalactic - beastie boys](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qORYO0atB6g), which i listened to too many times while writing this. the whole fic is un-betaed. i'm so sorry. 
> 
> chapter content warnings: brief mentions of violent homophobia (by strangers), non-explicit mentions of alien gender and genitals, bittle-centric distress, brief allusions to panic attacks/fainting, brief mentions of colonialism and genocide, canon-typical ableist language.

The sun is hot. Eric lives in Georgia, and the temperature is often unbearable through the summer. The sun beats down on his bare shoulders, his freckled cheeks. Blood rushes in his ears and his breath is rough, searing his esophagus. Sweat gathers in the folds of his clothing and chafes against his skin. 

Eric shouldn’t be running. He’s heard horror stories about running in the height of the summer heat. The temperature - overheard on the radio, while sitting at the breakfast table with a mouth full of pecan and banana pancakes - should be hovering right around 102 degrees. He knows that he’s going to puke, or pass out, or maybe just explode like a marshmallow in a microwave. 

But like Oscar de la Renta said: walk like you have three massive football players running after you while shouting homophobic invectives. 

The lack of brevity in his artistic license can be forgiven, he thinks, in a situation like this. Even in his private mind theatre, he tends to babble.

Eric sprints full tilt through the field on the outskirts of his old high school, already off the football field and making a desperate trajectory for his parents’ home. His vision is blurred from tears welling in his eyes. Eric isn’t sure if they’re from wind, or dust, or fear. 

Eric trips, and he says something his mama would chew him out for, even at the ripe age of twenty, even while trying to outpace violent bigots. 

He doesn’t feel the bite of the ground on his knees, on the palms of his hands. There is nothing but the sound of wind rushing in his ears, the high pitched noise of panic in the back of his throat, vertigo so sudden and intense that his vision blacks over. 

Eric thinks that the ground should probably be getting closer, not further away, before he loses consciousness entirely.

 

When Eric wakes up, he’s in an unfamiliar room, with a small painting of Earth and the moon surrounded by the lights and detritus of outer space. Panic builds in his thin chest. His hands shake. A frantic mental shuffle ensues while he tries to figure out why he’s been kidnapped. The mattress he’s laying on is springy and dense. It makes him think of rainforests, moss on redwoods, being kidnapped and stored away in a strange room on some kind of rhizome pad. 

Something catches his eye and he jumps: there is something moving in the painting.

He passes out again when he realizes it’s a window. 

 

“Look, I know you’re always looking for pets, but we don’t know how to care for a human. We can’t keep them.” Eric’s eyebrows furrow at the absurdity of such a statement. He suspects that he’s dreaming in his childhood bedroom, and that he’ll wake up shortly with a weird, insistent thought in his sleepy brain about pet care for growing boys. 

He doesn’t wake up. When he opens his eyes, there are two figures obscuring the window that shows outer-fucking-space. 

“Yeah, but do we just put it back where we picked it up from? That’s fucking bogus, Lardo.” The shorter figure does something weird with its breath, like a long, chittering exhale. Eric realizes that it’s a long-suffering sigh. 

“Why were you spying on them to begin with? We’re not authorized to take samples from unconnected planets and you fucking know that, Rans.” 

“Listen, I was just trying to figure out what the elemental composition of the growing matter in the surrounding fields were, and then Holster saw it and caught its weird distress signal or whatever. You know what he’s like when he empathy-bonds, it’s like he wants to start a fucking one man bandwagon for saving things.”

“So you’re saying we can’t put it back because Holtz did his freaky empathy mojo with something of disputed sentience on a planet that’s essentially a garbage dump.” 

“No, I’m saying that Holster felt bad for it, and brought it aboard, and then did his freaky empathy mojo.” The short one moves its limbs in an unfamiliar but clearly frustrated gesture, and then blinks six shining black eyes in Eric’s direction. 

“Oh, shit, it’s awake. Can you understand us?” 

Eric makes a sound that can generously be described as a squeak. The short one looks up at the tall one again. 

“See? Disputed sentience. The ship’s translator is working fine.” 

“So what, we put it back because it’s stupid? Holster’s gonna fucking flip if you try that out on him.” 

“I can understand you,” Eric says. He’s annoyed, but his poor confrontation skills combined with pants-shitting fear helps him keep his voice quiet. In a corner of his mind, he wonders if he could have applied this particular self preservation tactic while sassing a trio of meathead jocks, and saved himself from being called stupid by weird looking creatures holding him hostage. He considers that maybe he’s actually dead, but he doesn’t think limbo would be quite this weird. Even when his imagination extends beyond the kitchen, it rarely extends to this kind of science fiction malarky. 

“Ah, see! I fucking told you, dude,” the tall one says.

“The only thing you told me was the possibility of an empathy meltdown, so don’t fucking try that on me.” The short one takes a couple steps towards Eric. Eric flinches back and curls up like a startled pill bug. The figure snorts, and rolls all six of her dark eyes. 

“Chill, my dude. We come in peace or whatever. I’m Lardo.” Eric stares. He looks at her slender body, her iridescent sheen. When she smiles, Eric stares at the rows and rows of tiny teeth. 

“Do you, like, have a name? Humans are familiar with the convention of naming themselves, right?” 

Eric, despite aforementioned pants-shitting fear, is a Southern boy, and was raised right by his Southern mama. He nods immediately, and offers his hand to shake. 

“Yes, ma’am, I’m Eric Bittle.” Lardo’s expression changes, and Eric is immediately reminded of raised eyebrows and poorly concealed mockery. 

“Ma’am?” she asks, reaching out to touch Eric’s fingers with her own. Lardo’s hands are long, and fine-boned, and appear to have serrated edges. The other, taller figure seems to be trying not to laugh, or might be coughing something up. 

“Yeah, um, ma’am is-” 

“Whatever it means for you, don’t call me that. That shit’s for old people.” Lardo spreads Eric’s fingers and touches the soft webbing with her hellbird hands. Eric swallows hard. 

“Right. Okay.” 

“So you’re like, totally carbon based, right?” asks the taller figure. Eric blinks a few times, slow from shock and confusion and the gentle press of claw tipped fingers investigating his hand and forearm. He thinks that this might be the weirdest instance of kidnapping in all of human history. Up to and including accounts of alien abductions, which he’s now starting to think might be true.

“I don’t-maybe? There’s probably other things in there, too, I suppose,” Eric says, and the taller figure sets wide, dark hands on Eric’s bare shoulder, and Eric is suddenly being analyzed by two different aliens. At least the taller one’s hands are more humanoid, less sharp, warm. 

“Hey!” a third voice echoes down the hallway. “Stop whatever you’re doing, you fucking assholes, I can feel him freaking out all the way across the ship.” The taller one jumps back, but Lardo takes the opportunity to hook her finger into Eric’s neckline and peer down his shirt. 

“Lardo!” says the third voice. A blond haired, definitely human person barrels through the door. 

“What?” Lardo demands, her hands up, palms out. “It’s all in the name of art, man.”

“Stop feeling my human up, he’s freaking out,” says the definitely-maybe human one. Eric’s head is spinning, and he’s worried he’s going to pass out again. 

“Oh, so they’re _your_ human now.” 

“You’re looking pretty human, too, dude. Are you going native?” The blond one scoffs. 

“No, shit-for-brains, I just figured that a being from an unconnected planet system would find comfort in seeing another goddamn human, and not a couple of assholes who probably haven’t even told him their names.” Lardo and the tall person have the sense to look guilty, at least. 

“I told them _my_ name,” Lardo mumbles, but blondie is already taking a seat on the weird springy mattress thing, right beside Eric. 

“Hi, human. I’m Holster, resident empath and only person with any goddamn manners.” Holster, resident empath with questionable human status, then points to the others. “Those two are Lardo and Ransom, who you probably know better as ‘worst welcome wagon of all time.’” 

“Bro,” says Ransom, looking wounded. 

“He’s not wrong,” says Lardo. 

“What’s your name, human?” Holster asks, ignoring them. Ransom cuts Eric off before he can open his mouth. 

“He said it was Eric Bittle.” 

Holster pinches the bridge of his nose. “Dude. Bro. You are super not endearing yourself right now.” 

“I’m just trying to help!” Ransom holds one of their hands to their chest. 

“Stop talking over him, then, for fuck’s sake.” 

“Listen, bro, if you don’t want me here, just say-” 

“I don’t want you here,” Holster says, cutting him off. 

“ _Bro!"_

“I don’t want either of you here, you’re making everything worse.” Holster sets a hand on Eric’s shoulder. Eric flinches. He’s hyperventilating hard enough that the edges of his vision are going dark and blotchy. A sudden concern about oxygen levels in an alien spaceship only makes it worse. Reality dawns slow as Eric comes to terms with the facts: he’s in a spaceship, suspended thousands of miles above Earth, while the aliens surrounding him argue in fluent fucking _bro-speak._

“What the fuck is going on in here,” says another voice, and then a devastatingly attractive (and visibly human) head pokes through the open doorway. Pale eyes lock with Eric’s, and dark brows pull into a furrow. “What the fuck is that?” 

Not human, Eric thinks. 

He passes out again. 

 

When he wakes up, he has a long, one-on-one conversation with Holster, who describes himself as “the only fucking person on this stupid ship who can do anything right.” 

Eric learns that space is, unsurprisingly, fucking massive, and that there are a bunch of planets and galaxies with sentient beings, and that a lot of them are “connected” by some kind of neato space colonialism that’s significantly better than Earth colonialism, because it comes hand in hand with a distinct lack of genocide. Which is pretty cool, Eric thinks, and then says, and then Holster goes on a rant about how Earth got left out of the cool space connection loop because humans have “a fucking terrible track record for investigating anything without completely destroying it,” or something. 

Holster rants about a lot of stuff that Eric doesn’t really understand. Through the swearing, he’s able to pick out that there was once, space historically, a species that tried to take over the whole universe. Before Holster can really get on a roll, he says that Jack knows a lot more about it so Eric should ask them, and jumps topics before Eric can ask who Jack is. 

Eric also ends up with a nickname. 

He decides that it is a very weird day.

 

“This is Bitty,” Holster says, “on account of how fucking itty bitty he is.” Holster has gathered most of the crew to make introductions, and Eric’s head is spinning a little bit. He feels overwhelmed, but in a cool information acquisition way, instead of a terrified and kidnapped and trapped kind of way. Learning about aliens in space will do that to you, he thinks, after getting over the world-rocking realization that they’re real.

Most species, he learns, are a lot bigger than humans are. “Most of us are like, hella breakable in comparison, though,” Holster says, when Eric voices his observation. 

Many beings introduce themselves, and Eric remembers maybe two of them. Names are hard to connect to faces when those faces are configurations of features that Eric has never seen before. 

“Wow!” says one person, their bright eyes huge in their face. “So you’re a human! I’ve never been so close to one before, oh wow, can you really bite through metal?” 

“Come on, Chowder, you know that’s just a myth,” says another person (Eric thinks their name is Dex), but Chowder continues looking at Eric expectantly. 

“Um, no,” Eric says, and Chowder’s expression falls right off his precious little alien face. “But, uh, we do use metal in our mouths, to make our teeth straight.” 

Chowder looks like he’s gone into raptures again. Dex looks at him skeptically. 

“Why would you make something to straighten your teeth out?” they ask. “What’s the purpose?”

“Uh, it’s mostly, like, aesthetically pleasing.” Dex continues to look unimpressed. It’s the most human expression Eric has seen since being plucked off Earth, so Eric tries his best to explain how braces work. Dex doesn’t have eyebrows, but Eric is pretty sure if they did, they’d be creeping into their hairline (which they also don’t have). 

“So, wait, okay,” Dex says, interrupting him. “Humans put cement and metal on their teeth for years, in a configuration that slowly and painfully forces their teeth to go into a specific pattern, for the express purpose of making their teeth _look nice?”_ Eric nods. Chowder is listening with his mouth hanging open. 

“Holy shit,” Dex says. 

Dex wanders off before Eric can figure out if he’s amazed, incredulous, or just confused. Chowder ends up hanging off Eric, asking him questions at a dizzying rate. Holster senses Eric becoming more and more overwhelmed and steps in. 

“Alright, folks, that’s enough. Poor Bitty’s had a pretty big culture shock today, it’s time he had a nap or something.” 

“Do humans take naps?” Chowder asks, somehow managing to sound awed at the volume he’s currently talking at. 

“Chow, fucking chill,” Holster says, which triggers a whispered tirade of apologies. As Holster leads him out of the room, Eric sees that person again, the human looking one. They raise their voice, and everyone’s attention snaps to them. The airlock seals before Eric can get an idea of what they’re saying. 

“Who was that?” he asks. Holster ruffles Eric’s hair.

“That, Bits, is our fearless captain.” 

Eric watches him through the window in the airlock until Holster leads him around a corner. 

 

Eric is quiet for a while, when they return to his room. It’s a lot to process, and he needs a little decompression time before he can even ask questions. He’s laying down on the weird mattress while Holster uses a handheld device with a holographic projection screen to do more research on humans, and human history, and human culture. Youtube can now boast to delight millions of humans and one very large alien. 

It’s comforting, watching Ariana Grande music videos, and GOP debates, and dudes in helmets setting off fireworks in a bathtub. It settles his ruffled nerves. 

Holster is memorizing the words to Dangerous Woman (and he has a surprisingly nice singing voice) when Eric takes a deep breath. 

“So, um, what are you, anyways? You’re not, like, you’re not a human.” Holster nods. 

“Astute observation, bro. I am, in fact, not a human.” He pauses the video and pulls up a different screen, pointing at a word in an alien language, an unfamiliar writing system. “I’m a shapeshifter.”

“Oh my gosh, really? So you can turn yourself into anything?” Eric asks, sitting up. He’s pretty sure his eyes are shining in interest. “Could you turn yourself into me?”

“Nah, Bits, it doesn’t work like that,” he says. “I can shift into different species, but I always have the underlying similarities to my natural body. If I shifted into a Dengrilat, I wouldn’t look like Ransom, I’d look like me as a Dengrilat.” 

“Can I see?” Eric asks, hands kneading his thighs in his excitement. Holster waves a hand, looking both imperious and silly. 

“Turn your head while a lady changes, dude,” he says, and laughs when Eric covers his eyes and stutters through a couple apologies. 

Eric opens his eyes and gapes a bit. He feels like he’s just witnessed a miracle of science and nature. Holster is taller and thicker and paler than Ransom, his eyes are still heavily lidded. He looks like himself, undeniably and against all logic. 

“You’re right,” he finally says. “I would never mistake you for Ransom.” 

Holster looks comfortable in this form, far more settled than he’d been as a human. Eric wonders if this is how Holster spends most of his time. The question is on the tip of his tongue, but instead what he asks is:

“What does your natural body look like?” Holster freezes where he’s just sat down. 

“Excuse me?” Holster asks, incredulous expression hardening into a glare.

“Uh. Why are you looking at me like that?” Eric stomach gets tight, the way it does on Earth when he’s done something embarrassing. 

“I know you’re not from ‘round these parts,” Holster starts, briefly affecting a truly terrible Southern accent straight out of an old Western. “But you should probably know that you just barrelled headlong into the biggest shapeshifter faux pas. You might as well ask me to peel off my skin and masturbate on stage.” 

Eric covers his mouth with one hand. “Oh my gosh, I’m so sorry-” 

“Like, I don’t think you get how fucked up that question is, dude,” Holster continues, cutting him off. “It’s like, the ultimate shapeshifter taboo. If you had asked a different shapeshifter, they would have flown into a fucking murder rage and eaten your eyeballs or something.” 

Eric isn’t sure if Holster’s trying to scare him into respecting an unfamiliar social boundary or what, but his expression is pretty pissed off, so Eric decides to take it at face value. 

“I’m so sorry, Holster, I won’t ever ask again.” Holster studies him for a second before nodding sharply and turning back to the holographic screen. He leans in to watch another Youtube video with Eric, and Eric’s pretty sure he’s been forgiven.

“So there are, uh, a couple human-y looking people,” Eric says, once he figures enough time has elapsed and they’ve burned through a few Parks and Recreation clips. Holster takes his cultural education very seriously, starting with human media. 

“Uh, not really, dude. I don’t count.” 

“Well, yeah, I know that. But your. Uh. Your captain.” 

Holster looks up at him and laughs. “Oh, shit, dude, no! No, Jack’s super not a human.” And from there, Holster starts to explain more cool space stuff that leaves Eric a little dizzy and a little overwhelmed. It’s become his default state. It will stay his default state for the foreseeable future.

“Okay, so like, there were a lot of people who were kind of frustrated when humans turned out to be literal death machines, because humans are so fucking cool. They fucking just chug ethanol for the funsies, right? They can survive pretty much any injury. They eat things that are so hot their assholes burn when they shit them out.

“So because we couldn’t let humans into our cool space club, because they’d have fucked everything up, a bunch of academics basically decided to study humans and try to build their own that didn’t want to kill everything. It was like, way unethical. Ransom talks about it sometimes, in that hushed way that scientists talk about super fucked up but mega interesting shit, you can ask them about it later. 

“So basically, these guys created androids. Like, sentient life, but based on humans. Androids have like, all the cool things about humans, drive and imagination and shit, but they don’t have the hardwired ‘destroy everything different from you’ setting. And that’s what Jack is.” Eric blinks hard. 

“Wait, so your captain is a robot?” Holster’s brows furrow and he shrugs. 

“Uh, no? They’re an android. They're totes not the same thing, despite the similarities.” Eric lays back on the mattress and takes a long, deep breath. 

“So what’s the deal with Lardo? She’s all shiny? Her hands are made of knives?” Holster laughs and laughs and brings up a window on the holographic screen so Eric can read about different species. 

 

Eric spends twenty three hours on the ship - between passing out and naps and conversations and one very, very long reading binge - when he decides he wants to stay. College has been neat, but only an asshole would pass up the opportunity to be an intergalactic space ambassador for the entire human race. 

In less than one Earth day, Eric has learned more than he has in two full years of post-secondary education. He’s read about species of aliens, planet types, different kinds of atmospheres and climate patterns, about cultures and societies and governments. He’s read about the history of space exploration, the pitfalls of colonization, the decision made by a thousand different ambassadors from a thousand different planets to deny some species’ entry to the collective (or, as Holster puts it, ‘Cool Space Club’). He learns about destroyed planets, societies lost to imperialism, and he can’t exactly blame anyone for wanting to keep humans away from their worlds. 

He knows now that sex and gender basically mean nothing in space, that there are species that reproduce asexually, species that have only one genital configuration, that have twenty genital configurations, species that choose their gender based on what role they want to play in their community, that choose their gender based on nothing at all but a bone-deep feeling, species that can’t comprehend gender or sexuality within the context of their own bodies, their identities, their cultures.  
So Eric decides to stay. He decides to go back to Earth, to pack a bag, to tell his parents that he’s going to do something amazing. To reassure them he’ll be fine. 

 

“What do you mean, he can’t go back to Earth?” Ransom asks. “Why are you being such a dick about this?” 

“I mean,” says Jack, in that weirdly magnetic, monotonous way they talk, “that we’ve left his solar system, and that we’re currently passing Alpha Centauri. If we turn around now, we won’t have enough fuel to get to the docking station.” 

An argument breaks out. Eric is pretty sure that Ransom is arguing for him. In the back of his mind, he registers that Ransom is accusing Jack of doing this on purpose, that Jack is belittling Eric for not making up his mind sooner. He doesn’t care. He doesn’t listen. He looks out the window and tries to find something familiar as his vision blurs over with tears.

 

He spends the next twenty seven hours in the little room they’ve assigned him. When he blinks, his eyelids feel like sandpaper on his sore, swollen eyes. When he speaks, his voice is rough. It shakes and cracks when he asks to be left alone. 

The window shade is pulled up, so Eric can see how fast they’re moving. He watches as they sail by stars and rocks and solar systems while his heart aches for the smell of cinnamon, the heat of the sun on his shoulders. 

 

(His parents don’t know. His mother will think he is missing, and then dead, and she will weep over an empty casket.)

(Eric cries, and cries, and cries, until he falls asleep. Brown eyes blink open and fill with tears all over again.)

 

Lardo is the one who ends up getting Eric out of his room. She sits on the edge of his bed and puts her graceful hand on his knee and sits with him in silence. 

Eric sits up so he can lean on her. She lets him touch her shiny feathers, and she answers the potentially offensive questions Eric asks. When Eric can talk without the frail wobble in his voice, Lardo stands up and takes his hand. 

“You need to eat something. Humans eat, right?” Eric’s stomach growls loudly in response. 

So Lardo gets him out of his room, and introduces him to the kitchen. 

Which is, in Eric’s humble opinion, a fucking disaster. 

“What do you mean?” Lardo asks when he voices this particular opinion. 

“Look at it, Lardo! This kitchen looks like the kitchen in a frat house,” he says, and Lardo snorts out a laugh. Eric isn’t completely sure if she’s laughing at his joke or at whatever the translation ended up being. He’s been told that the translator sometimes makes weird decisions for translating words and concepts that don’t overlap between languages and cultures. 

He’s almost certain they don’t have frat houses on the avian planet Lardo is from, but it wouldn’t be the first time he was wrong. Frat nests, maybe. 

“Man, rude,” Lardo says through her laughter, while Eric picks through dirty dishes and unfamiliar cooking utensils. 

“Don’t you rude me!” he says, trying not to grin. It feels nice to joke around after a full day of crying, especially when it means he doesn’t have to think about his parents worrying about him on Earth. “This place is a sty, what’ve y’all even been doing in here? Trying to wage nutritional warfare? Because I’m almost certain Holster would say that’s against the space club bro code.” 

“Cold as ice, Bitty,” Lardo says, shaking her head. “We don’t really make anything, other than a mess.” 

“And I can see the mess, right here where I’m standing.” Lardo punches his shoulder, eyes smiling where her beak-mouth hybrid can’t. 

“It’s basically an every man for himself deal, in here,” she says. “We really have to pick and choose food items, because a lot of stuff that’s delicious to some of us is mega poison to others.” 

“I mean, that makes sense, Lardo, it does. But it doesn’t really account for the state of this poor kitchen.” 

 

Lardo teaches him how to use the appliances in her charming, stoic way. Despite his first impression, Lardo is quiet and competent and sarcastic. She gets a little bossy when teaching him how to use the microwave-sized transporting device they use for ingredients, but seems relieved when he proves his ability to manage on his own. Lardo sits back and watches him taste things while he throws something together. Her expression is skeptical when Eric offers her a bite, but the pleased noise she makes is worth it. 

She directs him to the cleaning supplies when Eric won’t stop asking, and explains which liquids are corrosive and which he can use with his bare hands.  
He spends four full hours cleaning, scrubbing until his hands and knees are sore. The kitchen looks wonderful when he’s finished. He decides then and there to ban everyone from making food and instate himself as the ship chef. 

In the three minutes it takes him to use the bathroom (and the weird space toilet), Ransom and Holster manage to litter the counters and floor with crumbs. In the ensuing struggle for kitchen dominance, Ransom collapses in defeat, and Eric is laughing so hard he’s wheezing. 

Holster’s mocking shouts fade into laughter, and if his smile is tender when he presses it to Ransom’s face. Well. Eric won’t be the one to make fun of them. 

 

With a little research and Ransom at the helm of an Excel document, Eric plots out what ingredients are safe for ship-wide consumption. 

The first pie he makes is a pecan pie. He is entirely horrified at the truly reprehensible spectacle his shipmates make of it. A pie of that caliber ought to be treated with a little more dignity, but his objections fall on deaf ears. 

When Holster dubs Eric the official ship chef, there are no complaints. 

Eric thinks, for the first time since they’d left his solar system, that everything might be okay. 

 

Eric wakes up from his first proper sleep cycle on the ship to a huge commotion in the hall. Never one to enjoy the morning, he is immediately grumpy and spends a while trying to swallow the terrible taste of sleep out of his mouth. He’s still half asleep when the ruckus gets loud enough for him to make out words from the noise.

“You motherfuckers have been hoarding him, okay? This is some bogus shit, I want to meet him, too.” 

“Shits, listen, he’s delicate-” 

“You can’t drop the fucking delicate bomb with everyone and expect me to be chill with that, bro.” 

“I don’t drop it with everyone! It’s just Ransom and Bitty-”

“Just Ransom and Bitty for now, maybe, but what happens when you fucking decide that Jack’s delicate? That _Lardo’s_ delicate? I’m cutting your goddamn delicacy hegemony out at the knees, dude.” 

The door flies open. Eric’s immediate impression is _a lot of hair._

And that’s how Eric meets Shitty.


	2. as they slip away across the universe

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “You’re the most misanthropic empath I’ve ever fucking seen, dude.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so like, life happened. it happened and it just keeps happening. between work issues, friend issues, and an impromptu vacation to cuba, life happened a lot, and this chapter has been 90% written for about three weeks. i’m so sorry. i could try to promise that it won’t happen again, but i can’t, because as previously stated, life happens.
> 
> this chapter was basically written as a filler, but also as a character interaction indulgence. it’s silly and kind of pointless but i Lav it. there’s not much to do in space!!! ya gotta hang out with ya frans!!! actual plot will probably start in the next chapter instead of just character vignettes. 
> 
> content warnings for recreational space weed use, many mentions of many types of food, and cuddly misanthropic holster.

In his memories, the kitchen is always drenched in golden sunshine. A kitchen has a soul, his mama always says, and that soul shines through in every memory he has. Even the bad memories, the painful ones, are lit with gold. The kitchen set a gorgeous backdrop to every skinned knee, every burnt pie, every difficult conversation. He remembers the glare of sunlight on the shining chrome of appliances, the creased lines of Coach’s tight mouth, the fragile smile on his mother’s face, on the day he finally came out. He remembers flour swirling into fanciful dust motes as the sun shone in on his freckled hands kneading dough.

Every memory has a sharp, heavenly brightness to it, especially in the cool, artificial lighting on the ship. He hasn’t found the soul of his new kitchen yet, but he knows that it won’t be like the sticky, golden heat of his old one. 

With or without a soul, the ship kitchen puts out. Eric wipes sweat from his brow with the back of his hand and admires the spread: strawberry pie, blueberry pie, chocolate pecan mini pies, marble brownies, custard-filled almond croissants, pastries on cooling racks covering every spare inch of counter and table space. Eric had been surprised at the lack of gluten and nut based allergies on the ship, considering the human prevalence. Any new, unexpected reactions have been mild. Eric is pretty pleased that his baking repertoire hasn’t taken too big a hit, with all these alien stomachs to feed. 

Eric sighs, and grins, and stuffs his mouth with a warm spice cookie. With a mental pat on the back, he starts his eighth round of dishes of the day. 

It’s almost serene, being alone in the kitchen. The sanitizer hums and rattles, full of utensils and mixing bowls. The smells of sugar and vanilla and cloves fill the air, and when Eric closes his eyes, he can almost feel the sun on his skin. 

The door whirs open and the illusion is shattered. 

“Holy fuck, Bits, you’re not fucking around today,” Shitty says, and stuffs a mini pie into his mouth. 

Over the course of a week, Eric has become... _accustomed_ to Shitty. Shitty is, in a word, obnoxious. He’s loud, but it’s not like Holster’s comforting, rumbling cadence. Shitty shouts, and hollers, and curses more than Eric thought anyone could curse.

Eric wishes that someone familiar was in the kitchen with him, to act as a buffer. But Ransom is off analyzing some kind of nifty space bacteria they picked up, Dex is teaching Chowder and Nursey how to shut down specific parts of the engine to run maintenance, and Shitty only gets _more_ obnoxious with Lardo around. 

(Holster has been lost to Netflix for the past four days and is in no shape to make a heroic appearance in the kitchen. The last time Eric checked up on him, he was halfway through season five of The X-Files and mumbling under his breath about the human imagination and offensive inaccuracies.) 

Eric tries to smile around his cookie, and he knows the expression is forced. Even Captain Jack, who might hate him, would be a welcome presence at this juncture. Jack is nice to look at, and also has a sweet and truly baffling relationship with Shitty. They could keep each other busy while Eric snuck through the door, safe from awkward social interactions. 

“Fuckin’ rights, dude, this shit is fucking phenomenal,” Shitty says, crumbs on his mustache. 

“Um, thanks, Shitty.” Eric nibbles at a croissant while Shitty inhales one of everything. Eric is kind of worried that Shitty’s hair is going to get in some of the pastries, despite knowing that his fears are mostly unfounded. Shitty brushes his hair ( _all_ of his hair, covering most of his body) multiple times a day, to keep it from getting tangled. Any loose strands get caught in the teeth of his brush. 

For the first time in his life, Eric wishes someone’s hygiene was less meticulous. It would give him a reason to kick Shitty out of the kitchen. He doesn’t _dislike_ Shitty, per se. Eric just doesn’t know how to act around him. It probably takes a while to relax around someone after they burst into your room and pick you up, morning aggression and blankets and all. 

They fall into a pretty awkward silence, which Shitty tries to cover up by keeping his mouth full at all times. Eric checks the temperature of the baked goods and starts packing them into tupperware containers. It keeps his hands busy, and it might be the exact tactic he needs to make Shitty stop eating everything he’s just made without having to say a word. 

The door whirs open again, and Jack steps into the kitchen with their standard issue frown. Shitty immediately latches onto them, slapping their back.

“Man, you gotta try some of this,” he says, grabbing the nearest pastry still out on the counter and holding it in front of Jack’s face. Jack pushes Shitty off and levels their frown at Eric. 

“Bittle,” they say, and Eric was wrong. Captain Jack is the last person Eric wants in the kitchen. 

“Uh,” Eric says. 

“This is ridiculous,” Jack says. Their hand gesture clearly indicates the baked goods. “This is a gross waste of resources. A high sugar and fat diet is unacceptable for the crew.” 

“Jack!” Shitty says, holding his hand to his chest. “You can’t just. You can’t come into Bitty’s kitchen and just tell him he can’t make cookies.” 

“It’s not Bittle’s kitchen,” Jack says, the furrow between his brows deepening. Distress turns Eric’s stomach. He’s only seen it a couple times, but he can recognize the signs of a truly angry Jack Zimmermann. The future flashes before his eyes: a future where he’s not allowed to use the kitchen because Captain Jack is a vindictive health nut.

“It _is_ ,” Shitty counters, and stuffs a piece of maple blondie between Jack’s lips. Eric wants to thank Shitty for sticking up for him at his own expense, for personally taking on Jack’s fury, but he’s too mesmerized by the way Jack’s face changes. Their frown is completely gone. Eric has never seen Jack without a frown before. 

Eric’s surprise only grows when Jack takes the rest of the blondie from Shitty’s hand, and when they dig three more out of the pan. They look at Eric again. Their frown is back, but just barely.

“Less sugar, more protein,” Jack says, and turns, and exits the kitchen with their haul of baked goods. 

The kitchen is quiet for a moment, in the wake of a redirected natural disaster.

“Holy fuck,” Shitty says. “I had no idea _that_ was going to happen. What did you put in those?” Eric turns wide eyes on Shitty. 

“I,” he starts. “Uh,” he starts again. He settles for a shrug. Shitty mirrors it before shoving a maple blondie in his mouth. Eric was annoyed just moments ago because of Shitty eating too much, but now he finds that he doesn’t mind. 

 

Eric is introduced to the gym on the ship after thirteen days of being on deck. The space is huge and lit with bright, warm lights. There’s some machinery, though most of it appears to be for cardio. All of the other workout machines are unfamiliar and look a little bit like torture devices to Eric. The floor is covered in squishy mats for floor exercises and stiff foam for weight lifting. 

Eric puts his hands on his hips and turns to Chowder, Dex, and Nursey, who’ve delegated themselves as the “Welcome to the Gym” committee.

“Now how come y’all couldn’t have shown me in here earlier? Like, I don’t know, maybe when I started complaining about feeling cooped up and having too much energy?” Chowder’s excited expression crumples in an instant. 

“We would have, Bitty! I’m really sorry, I know you’re-” Nursey cuts him off with a fond eye roll. 

“Chill, Chowder.” 

“Holy shit, would you stop saying that? It doesn’t mean anything, shut up,” Dex says, narrowing their eyes. 

“Come on, Dex, you of all people could use a little chill,” Nursey says, the ghost of a smirk on his face. 

“What does that even mean?” Dex demands, face scrunching up into a familiar expression of frustration and annoyance. 

“It means, Poindexter, to take a deep breath, find your center of gravity, and fucking _chill_.” Dex looks like he’s going to explode. Chowder is looking at Eric with wide, distressed eyes. 

“Okay, that’s enough,” Eric says, getting between the two of them and pushing them apart with his palms on their chests. Dex glares at Nursey. Nursey shrugs at Dex. 

“Okay, uh!” Chowder says, taking the moment of silence to try and diffuse the situation. “We didn’t bring you in here because we weren’t allowed! Jack’s orders.” 

Eric feels his stomach bottom out. He’s not unfamiliar with people disliking him for no good reason, but he’d thought that. Maybe. He’d be able to get away from it, hundreds of billions of miles away from Earth. 

His expression must change, too, because Chowder backpedals and makes a lot of weird gestures to accompany his anxious babbling. Dex covers Chowder’s mouth with their hand. Nursey tells him to breathe. 

“What he meant to say is that everyone has to have a period of acclimation to the ship system,” Dex explains. “If you don’t get used to the chemical makeup of the air and the artificial gravity first, using the gym is, uh. Pretty detrimental to your health.” The knot in the pit of Eric’s stomach relaxes.

“Oh,” he says. The flood of relief is expected, but he's surprised by just how _big_ it is. 

“Shitty tells this story,” Chowder says, in the hushed, excited tones of someone telling a local legend, “about Holster first getting on the ship and going to the gym right away, and how it messed with his body so much that he’d change species every time he sneezed.” Eric considers this in silence before he starts laughing. It starts as a giggle, but builds until Eric is doubled over, wheezing, trying to imagine the confusion and fury on Holster’s face.

“Yeah, he got really dizzy and puked for three hours because of the weird lactic acid build up, too,” Dex mumbles, but Eric is laughing too hard to respond. 

Chowder is clearly delighted by Eric’s laughter, beaming wide like the ray of sunshine he is. “Apparently Holster sneezed when he was sitting in Rans’ lap, and turned into something really really big, and almost crushed him!”

Eric laughs and laughs and laughs. Chowder starts laughing with him, and Dex is rolling their eyes but they’re smiling, too. Nursey’s shoulders shake with his quiet chuckling as he pulls weights down from the wall. 

Eric spends two hours in the gym, until he’s collapsed in Chowder’s lap, sweaty and exhausted and so fucking pleased. Chowder yelps and pushes him off, complaining about weird, mammalian sweat glands. 

“You know,” says Ransom, just entering the gym, “Lardo told me once that Shitty’s mammal sweat gave her a rash.” 

Chowder gasps and looks at Eric with an expression of intense distress. 

“Bitty, oh no,” he whispers. “Now I feel itchy.” 

Eric falls back against the mat and starts laughing again. 

 

Eric lures Holster out of his Netflix binge approximately 168 hours after it starts, with a well placed blueberry crumble and a stern talking to. Eric thinks that Holster could be more grateful, but he would probably be annoyed and overtired if he just spent that many consecutive hours caught in a vicious Netflix cycle, too. When he makes an appearance in the galley with Holster in tow, he expects to be hailed for his accomplishments. No one really notices, which concerns him. 

In fact, the only person who says anything is Ransom, a loud call of “glad you’re alive, bro!” As if they hadn’t just been without their partner for a full week.

Eric watches the two of them bump fists when Holster sits beside them, and shakes his head. Their rule about not engaging in PDA is bulletproof, and apparently fineable. 

Lardo straight up snorts when Eric tells her that he saved Holster from rotting in front of a screen and no one seemed to care. She’s sitting on the kitchen counter while Eric kneads dough, making dense sandwich bread for strange alien foods. 

“Honestly, Bits? We all do it,” she says. Her mouth is full with some kind of weird meat smoothie she made with an unfamiliar appliance Eric’s never touched. It smells a little bit like bacon. 

“Uh, y’all have Netflix accounts?” Eric asks, raising his eyebrows. 

“No, loser, we all binge watch stuff. Do you really think humans are the only species with televisions and entertainment?” 

In all honesty, Eric _had_ thought that, but he keeps it to himself. 

“Space travel is fucking boring, dude,” she continues. “Most of the time, you just put the ship on autopilot and wait around until there’s an asteroid shower or you get to your destination. If you don’t find something to do, you go a little funny.” 

Eric is convinced that this is somehow wrong, and a lot like leaving someone in a depressive slump. He wonders about alien morality and empathy, but he keeps it to himself. Eric’s been on deck long enough that his shipmates are starting to get annoyed with him when he asks ignorant questions. 

Lardo seems to have used up all of her conversation for a while, so Eric chats at her rather than with her while he bakes the bread. He cuts her a piece of it when it’s fresh and hot. She considers it, and smears some of her meat smoothie on it. 

The noise she makes is almost adorable, and Eric considers it a job well done when she scarfs the rest of it down. 

 

Shitty is saying something. He’s definitely saying something. Eric thinks that maybe the translator isn’t working, because he doesn’t understand a word that Shitty’s saying, but he’s very passionate about it. Lardo is laughing harder than Eric’s ever seen her laugh.

“Goodness fuckin’ gracious,” he slurs, rubbing his sore eyes and taking another brownie off the plate. 

“I don’t think so, Itty Bitty,” Shitty says, gently taking the brownie from between his fingers. 

“Translator’s working again,” Eric says. For some unfathomable reason, this makes Shitty and Lardo bust up again, laughing until there are tears in all six of Lardo’s dark eyes. 

“Holy shit,” someone says from the door. Eric swings his whole body around to look and ends up falling off the pillow he was curled up on. Lardo starts laughing so hard there’s no actual sound, just wheezing. Holster is massive in the doorway, with a grin growing on his face slow as a sunrise. 

“Holy _shit_ ,” he repeats, sounding awed. “Did you assholes get him high?”

Eric stretches out on the floor, grinning up at Holster and shivering at the sensation of his shirt riding up his stomach. “No, _I_ got me high,” he says. 

Holster looks from the brownies, to Eric, to the brownies again. It takes him a second to put the pieces together.

“Fuck, Bitty, I’ve never been so proud in my life,” he says through his wide smile. 

Eric tips his head back to look at Shitty, who’s gone from raucous laughter to fond smiling. “The little fucker wanted to try it,” Shitty says, reaching over to play with Eric’s hair. “He, uh, what did you say, Bits?” 

“Want that dank ass space weed,” Eric says with a solemn expression. He busts up laughing after half a second, and Holster’s eyebrows pull together in an expression of fond, amused confusion. 

“What the fuck is he talking about?” Holster stage whispers. Shitty just shrugs. Lardo has progressed from overwhelming laughter to relaxed lounging. 

“It’s a meme!” Eric crows, sitting up so abruptly he gets dizzy. “Oh, wow, ain’t that a doozy.” Eric flops back down. His head hits Shitty’s hairy thigh. At some point in the evening, Shitty took all of his clothes off. Eric is too high to really mind. 

“And that would be what, exactly?” Holster asks, taking a seat on Eric’s vacated cushion.

“Holster, I’m ashamed,” Eric says. “All that time spent exploring the human internet and not a single meme seen.” Holster starts to respond, but Eric spaces out completely, amazed by the way his feet can flex and point. 

He’s jolted out of his little reverie by Holster pulling him into his lap. He has a brief episode of vertigo before snuggling back, happy to be held.

“Lards, look at this fucking beaut of a scene,” Shitty says. “The empath in his natural habitat.” Lardo hums in appreciation and mimes using a camera. 

“Fuck off,” Holster says. It makes Shitty laugh. 

“You’re the most misanthropic empath I’ve ever fucking seen, dude.”

“You’re just pissed because I won’t empathy-bond with you.” 

“Uh, yes? I thought we were goddamn friends, Holtzy, why won’t you tap into my feelings? Tap me like a tree, bro, I’m so fucking ready.” Eric splutters through his laughter. Holster wraps a firm arm around his waist. 

“Absolutely not,” Holster says, deadpan. “I don’t need your permafry infecting me or something.” 

“ _I thought we were bros!_ ” Shitty’s shout dissolves into giggles. Somewhere in Eric’s rational mind, he’s pretty sure that this is an old argument that gets dragged out for funsies. Then Eric laughs, because funsies is a weird word. 

“Man, you don’t get to punish me for mind altering substance use if you hold on to people so you can get second-hand high off them,” Shitty says before launching himself across the floor and draping himself over Holster’s shoulders. Holster is laughing and trying to push Shitty off. 

“Come on, dude! Make me your bro for life! Bond with me!” Holster gets his hand on Shitty’s face and pushes it away. He looks down at Eric. 

“This fucking guy, honestly. Stage five clinger if I ever saw one.” Eric laughs, but he’s getting kind of sleepy, tucked up against Holster’s warm body. He is positive that it has nothing to do with the alien weed he baked into his dessert. 

“Aw, hey, look at this.” Shitty gets his arms around Holster’s neck and looks down at Eric. “Bits is falling asleep right on top of you, man.”

Lardo leans in and coos, rubbing one serrated finger under Eric’s chin. Eric weakly slaps her hand away. 

“Shut up,” he mumbles.

“Look at this,” Shitty says, as Eric starts to doze. “This is the motherfucker you’ve trusted your emotional depths to.” 

“‘M still better than you,” Eric mumbles. He laughs at Shitty’s shocked inhalation and presses his face against Holster’s shoulder. When he falls asleep, it’s to the sound of his friends laughing. 

Waking up is his own personal misfortune. His head aches, and his mouth is dry. He only has to blink twice before vowing to never again partake in space drugs. He rarely smoked pot on Earth, so he’s definitely not going to put himself on the line like this in space. 

“It’s not like normal weed,” he whines at Shitty, who appears to be fine. “It’s vicious.” Shitty just shrugs. 

“More for me, I guess.” 

Eric hits him with a pillow. 

 

By day thirty seven in space, Eric has joined Holster’s Netflix binge with a massive bowl of popcorn, in a possibly misguided attempt to keep from getting full blown cabin fever. There are only so many pies a boy can bake, and only so many hours a boy can wear himself out on a treadmill.

“Knew you’d come around,” Holster says, stuffing a handful of popcorn in his mouth and voicing an incomprehensible criticism of the show he’s watching. 

“Lord above, Holster, shut up.” 

 

Eric is in the kitchen baking custard fruit tarts for Ransom when he hears the familiar whirring of the door opening. The door whirs closed again, and there is silence. For a moment, Eric thinks that maybe someone walking down the hall got too close to the door sensor. 

When he turns, Chowder is standing in the middle of the kitchen. 

“Um, hi, can I sit here? Sometimes I see people sitting in here with you, but I totally understand if maybe you want a little time to yourself, I just thought it might be nice and that I should ask but-” 

“Chowder,” Eric says, cutting him off before he runs out of breath and his lungs collapse. “Sweetheart. Have a seat, okay?” 

Chowder nods, and smiles, and has a seat. When he doesn’t immediately start talking, Eric knows something is wrong. Chowder ducks his head and scrubs the back of his hand over his mouth. Eric touches his shoulder with a gentle hand. 

“Chowder, is everything okay?” he asks. Chowder wilts. 

“Dex and Nursey are always fighting,” he says, sounding morose, before he jumps into a diatribe of everything they’ve been arguing about. Eric rubs his back for a while, and makes comforting noises from across the kitchen when Chowder just keeps talking. He has a laundry list about ten miles long, and Eric needs to finish some damn tarts.

“Also, I think Jack, like, hates me,” Chowder says, the dramatic period to the end of his monologue. Eric is relieved to have something he can actually work with, instead of a play-by-play recounting of a hundred arguments. 

“Oh, honey, Jack doesn’t hate you,” Eric says, enveloping him in a hug. Chowder makes a soft noise and presses his face into Eric’s shoulder. “They’re just a stick in the mud, they can’t help it.” Eric knows this objectively, because no matter how much Jack yells at him, he's yet to see an actual consequence to his actions. Shitty has a theory that Jack shows their affection through aggressive posturing, but Eric has walked in on Shitty and Jack spooning each other more than once. It’s clearly a goofed up theory.

He doesn’t tell Chowder this, because Chowder is sweet and innocent and doesn’t deserve that in his mind theater. 

“But, I mean, they’re nice to Shitty, and to Lardo,” Chowder starts, but Eric cuts him off. 

“Chowder, I know for a fact that you’ve heard Jack shouting at Shitty.” Everyone has heard Jack shouting at Shitty. The majority of this shouting is comprised of Jack being pissed off because Shitty is naked in their bed again. It is usually followed by rough housing and Shitty calling for a truce when Jack gets him in a headlock. 

“Shitty is the ship anomaly. He’s the only one of us who can deal with Jack’s mercurial moods without inciting even more fury,” Eric says.  
Chowder nods, but he still looks wilted. “Yeah, but Jack loves Lardo, too, they always spend time together and they never say anything mean to her-”

“Lardo is the queen of kicking everyone’s ass. If Jack treated her the way they treated the rest of us, they’d always be bruised, and they wouldn’t have an ounce of pride left.” Eric says. He doesn’t mention the way that Lardo and Jack relax and recharge together, sitting in companionable silence for hours at a time. Making Chowder worry about needing a special relationship with Jack is not the intention of the conversation. 

Chowder looks thoughtful for a moment, and then he breaks into a bright smile. “Yeah,” he says, sunny disposition firmly back in place. “Yeah, you’re right! Thanks, Bitty.” 

Eric doesn’t bring up the fact that he hasn’t really helped at all. He nods, and he smiles, and he serves up a piece of cherry pie while congratulating himself on a bullet well dodged. 

If nothing else, he never wants to be the one confronting Dex and Nursey on their weird love-hate relationship. Not even for his adopted son.

 

Tragedy is discovered by one Eric Bittle, sixty three days into his space journey. The day starts out normal, with a standard grumpy wake up and two hours making breakfast for the crew. 

(He made a Mexican style egg scramble, with black beans for extra protein. He thought it turned out okay, until Chowder started tearing up and coughing from the spices. 

“I’m sorry,” he’d said, while helping Chowder take sips of water and rubbing his back. “My poor, sweet child, I’m so sorry.” Chowder had been so understanding, but Eric could never risk this happening to someone so sweet and innocent again. He threw the entire container of chili powder into the waste compactor.) 

The tragedy, however, isn’t Chowder’s darling face screwed up in spicy agony. The tragedy is much, much more serious. 

Eric is in his room, because he’s recently learned how to connect his smartphone to the ship’s entertainment system. It’s been two months since the last time he danced around to Queen Bey and Nicki without the use of his headphones, and that in itself is a crime against nature. He makes sure that the only speakers he’s connected to are the ones in his room, and cranks Get Me Bodied loud enough that it vibrates through his chest. 

Within moments, the music has drawn a crowd. It’s a very small and confused looking crowd, but there’s at least three people, so it constitutes a crowd. At first he thinks they look confused because he’s dancing, but then he remembers that he’s got Moves with a capital M. If dancing doesn’t translate across the universe, then Eric wants to go back to Earth at his earliest convenience. 

“What is this?” Lardo asks. Behind her, Shitty looks like he’s trying to wiggle in time with the beat, and Eric makes a mental note to teach that boy how to dance before he dies of shame. Chowder, now fully recovered from the breakfast incident, has an excited smile on his face. 

“I. What?” Eric asks. “Lardo, it’s music.” Eric’s immediate concern is that there’s no music in the space collective, but he’s heard some of the shit Holster sings to Ransom in the lab. At the very least, there’s show choir. 

“No shit, dude,” Lardo says, rolling four of her eyes and keeping two of them trained on him. It’s eerie and entirely unappreciated. “I want to know what song it is.” 

Eric is baffled. He tells her the name of the song.

“You know, by Beyoncé?” Lardo’s feathery brows furrow. 

“What’s Beyoncé?”

Eric’s gasp is loud and rough in his throat. “Y’all’ve never heard of _Beyoncé_?” 

This is a tragedy far worse than not having music or dancing at all. It’s something that needs to be corrected in the most immediate fashion possible. He has found his calling, the cosmic reason behind Holster picking him up off Earth in the first place. 

Within forty five minutes, Eric calls together a conference for everyone on the ship not currently buried in work. Eric is passionate, and he takes his career as the Intergalactic Beyoncé Ambassador very seriously.

At the end of his short presentation, he feeds his Beyoncé discography through the ship speakers. Most of the crew looks a little flabbergasted, but he knows they’ll thank him in the long run. 

And so Eric goes along his day, Queen Bey pumping through the speakers of every room he enters. 

(If Jack finds him and shouts for a full ten minutes about misusing the ship’s speaker system, then at least he has great background tunes to drown it all out.)

 

“My dear Bitty, don’t even go there,” Ransom says, when Eric finally asks them why they don’t go on Netflix binges with Holster. 

“Uh,” Eric starts, but Ransom clearly has more to say. 

“You’ve watched Netflix with him. He rules the remote control with an iron fist, and the only things he ever wants to watch is serialized drama shows. You know what he did when I asked him if we could watch an action series?” Ransom asks, wiping his hands off so he can set them on the table and lean into Eric’s space. 

“I sure don’t,” Eric says. 

“He rolled his eyes, Bits. He rolled his eyes, and patted my knee, and started playing some boring, stupid romance.” 

Eric raises his eyebrows. 

“And let’s not forget about how deep the obsession goes,” Ransom continues, lifting their hands and making sharp gestures around their own head. “Why does he want to know so much shit about something that doesn’t even exist? Why does he know exact timelines for the lives of people who aren’t fucking real?” Ransom looks to Eric like he has the answers. Eric just shrugs in response. 

“Bitty, sometimes Holster watches something, and I end up knowing everything line by fucking line because he recites it so much,” they say. “Do you know how many terrible songs I know? How many terrible songs I know the _harmony_ to?” 

Eric can see the whites of Ransom’s eyes, which is actually kind of concerning when you consider how huge Dengrilat irises are. This seems like a pretty severe overreaction to a dude’s media habits. 

“ _Bitty,_ ” says Holster from his sudden appearance in the doorway. “What did you say to them?” 

Eric has never been on the receiving end of Holster’s anger, but he is now, and he doesn’t like it. Holster pushes past Eric and cups the back of Ransom’s head in his huge hands. 

“ _Why do you need to memorize so many show tunes?_ ” Ransom asks him, sounding desperate and kind of hysterical. A light bulb turns on behind Eric’s eyes.

“There’s a deadline coming up, isn’t there?” Eric asks. Ransom makes a quiet, distressed noise in the back of their throat. Holster turns to glare at Eric. 

“You fucked up the ecosystem, man,” he says. “How many times do I have to tell you assholes to leave Ransom’s delicate balance to the professionals?” Eric holds his hands up in a clear sign of defeat and backs out of the room when Ransom starts talking about protein threads and elemental composition. 

The door whirs shut just in time to preserve Holster and Ransom’s dedication to the PDA rule. 

 

The space station, when they get to it on day eighty nine, has more windows than Eric is comfortable with. He was expecting something more like the ship, but the space station is absolutely massive. Entire walls are made of glass, or something he can see through, at least. 

It looks fragile. Eric doesn’t want to go into it. 

But the whole team looks happy to dock, and Chowder looks fucking ecstatic. He’s practically bouncing off the walls. Even Jack, talking to the docking team over their headset, has a soft smile on their face. 

Eric figures that Captain Jack would never, in a million years, put his crew and friends at risk for a shiny station with too many breakable windows. When the docking procedure is finished and the doors open, he takes Lardo’s hand, and takes Shitty’s hand, and follows them.

**Author's Note:**

> come hang out with me on my [tumblr](http://faehunting.tumblr.com/). 
> 
> also, the fireworks in the bathtub video [is real](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SAcX_SNVLEs). you're welcome.


End file.
